Analysis: Long-standing strict N.J. law on overdose deaths still debated
Thursday June 13, 2013, 11:33 PM
BY REBECCA D. O’BRIEN
STAFF WRITER
The Record
When prosecutors charged two Bergen County men with causing the “drug-induced death” of an Emerson woman this week, they applied a rarely used statute that — although on the books since 1986 and upheld decisively by the state Supreme Court — remains the subject of legal debate, because of its severity and the difficulties of proving the charge.
The Strict Liability in Drug-Induced Deaths statute essentially treats suppliers as killers if the drugs that they placed on the street wind up causing a death. It is rarely used because the chain of supply leading to the death can be tough to trace.
Often, in the case of an overdose death, “all they have is a dead body,” Bergen County Prosecutor John L. Molinelli said. “We know they took the drugs, but we don’t know where they got it from.”
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